Out with new in with old for Rowsell ahead of World Cup

03 December 2014 / 16:24

It’s been a case of out with the new and in with the old for Joanna Rowsell ahead of the London leg of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup – and she’s happy to admit her mistakes in pursuit of more glory in the capital.

Rowsell will return to the velodrome in the Olympic Park as part of an 18-strong British team for the second World Cup of the season with fond memories of the venue.

The 25-year-old rode to gold three times in what is now the Lee Valley Velopark as part of a glorious 2012 – the first two coming at the last World Cup leg to be held in London.

Rowsell took victory in the individual and team pursuit – the latter a pre-cursor to the Olympics where she, Dani King and Laura Trott dominated the competition on the way to a stunning gold.

They set a world record in each of their three outings and Rowsell has since claimed five major international titles with three coming this year, two at the World Championships and one at the Commonwealth Games.

Following her individual pursuit gold at Glasgow 2014 however Rowsell opted to try a different training routine but soon realised that it wasn’t for her and duly switched back to the norm.

That led to a withdrawal from the World Cup opener in Mexico last month as a result but she is happy to have tried what she did even if it came with the admission that it was the wrong thing for her.

“I have had two weeks in Majorca, which were brilliant, my form has come on massively,” Rowsell told British Cycling. “I had a break after the Commonwealths, tried some different training out which didn’t really work for me.

“It worked well for some of the other girls but I just dipped so stopped and did what worked for me. It’s not that I’m not willing to try new training, but at my age I’ve done it for enough years to know what works.

“It’s good to try out new things and say ‘let’s go back to what we know works’. So I went to Majorca and had a good two weeks, all of my power outputs are coming back to what I’d expect and I feel a lot better on the track, so I’m in the right direction now.”

“The competition within the squad is a really positive thing in terms of us beating the rest of the world. That’s probably our secret to success because every day in training you are being pushed by somebody.

“You’ve always got to prove yourself to be in the team. Everything is timed and recorded, so there’s no hiding at all, which isn’t good when you don’t do well but great when you’re flying.”